V 




Civil-Service Reform 

UNDER 


THE PRESENT RATIONAL/DMIRISTRATION, 


AN ADDRESS DELIVERED 

AT THE ANNUAL MEETING OF 


The National Civil-Service Reform League, 


AUGUST 5, 1SS5, 


BY 


HON. GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. 


NEW YORK: 

PUBLISHED FOR THE 

NATIONAL CIVIL-SERVICE REFORM LEAGUE, 
1885. 

























Publications of the National League. 

AUGUST, 1885. 

Proceedings at the Annual Meeting of the National Civil-Service 
Reform League, 1882 , with address by George William Curtis. 
Per copy, 10 cts. Per 100, . . . . . . $7 50 

The same for 1883 . Per copy, 10 cts. Per 100, . . . $7 50 

The same for 1884 . Per copy, 10 cts. Per 100, . . $7 50 

The same for 1885 . Ter copy, 10 cts. Per 100, . . $750 

The Year’s Work in Civil Service Reform. (Address of 1884.) By 
George William Curtis. Per copy, 3 cts. Per 100, . $2 50 

Civil Service Reform under the present National Administration. 
(Address of 1885.) 13 y George William Curtis. Per copy, 3 cts. 

Per 100,.$2 50 

Report on the Expediency of Asking Candidates for Public Office 
their Views on Civil-Service Reform. Per copy, 10 cts. 
Per 100, . . . . . . . $7 50 

Address to the Voters of the United States. By George William 
Curtis. Per copy, 1 ct. Per 100, ..... 75 cts. 

The Four Years’ Term, or Rotation in Office. By Frederic W. 

Whitridge. Per copy, 3 cts. Per 100, . . . . $2 00 

The Selection of Laborers. By James M. Bugbee of the Mass. C. 
S. Commission. Ter copy, 2 cts. Per 100, . . . $1 25 


I. 


PUBLICATIONS OF THE NEW YORK ASSOCIATION. 

Purposes of the Civil-Service Reform Association, including 
its constitution. Per copy, 5 cts. 


II. The Beginning of the Spoils System in the National Gov¬ 
ernment, 1829 - 30 . (Reprinted, by permission, from Barton’s 
“Life of Andrew Jackson.”) Per copy, 5 cts. Ter 100, $3 00 

III. The Spoils System and Civil-Service Reform in the Custom- 

House and Post-Office at New York. By Dorman B. Eaton. 
# 136 pages, 8vo. Per copy, 25 cts. Per 100, . . $10 00 

IV. Civil-Service Reform in the New York Custom-House. By 

Willard Brown. Per copy, 5 cts. Per 100, . . . $3 00 

V. Term and Tenure of Office. By Dorman B. Eaton. Per copy, 25 cts. 
Second edition, abridged. Per copy. 15 cts Per 100, . $10 00 

VII. The Danger of an Office-Holding Aristocracy. By E. L. 
Godkin. Per copy, 5 cts. Per 100, . . . $3 00 




Civil-Service Reform 

UNDER 


THE PRESENT pop ADMINISTRATION, 


AN ADDRESS DELIVERED 


AT THE ANNUAL MEETING OF 


The 



AUGUST 5, 188s, 


BY 

HON. GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. 

M 


NEW YORK: 

PUBLISHED FOR THE 

NATIONAL CIVIL-SERVICE REFORM LEAGUE, 
1885. 





















p 

Publ. 

7 


PRESS OF 

WILLIAM S. GOTTSBERGER, 
I i Murray St., New York. 


Civil-Service Reform 

—UNDER- 

THE PRESENT NATIONAL ADMINISTRATION. 


The year that ends to-day has seen an event of the utmost 
importance in the history of Civil-Service Reform in this country, 
a party change in the national executive. As reform can not be 
held to be securely established until it has safely passed this 
ordeal, our most interesting question to-day is that of its position 
and promise after five months of such change. This is a question 
which we consider here solely as Civil-Service Reformers, and I 
shall speak plainly, and I hope wholly without party prejudice, as 
I am sure that you will not suspect any party purpose. 

Reform of the Civil Service is not as yet, and never has been, 
'the distinctive policy of either of the great national parties. The 
relation of both these parties to reform is like that of the Whig 
and Democratic parties to slavery forty years ago. In both 
parties there was an anti-slavery conviction. There were con¬ 
science Whigs and free soil Democrats. But neither of these 
groups could persuade its party to act unequivocally for freedom. 
The Democrats insisted that they stood by the compromises of the 
constitution. The Whigs declared, and truly, that their party was 
more anti-slavery than the Democratic party. But a Barmecide 
feast does not satisfy a robust appetite. It was not enough for earn- 



4 


est anti-slavery men that the Whig party was more anti-slavery 
than the Democratic party. Neither was an anti-slavery party, 
and after the long and vain endeavor to pour new wine into old 
bottles, the conscience Whigs and the free-soil Democrats threw 
the old bottle away and filled a new vessel with the divine spirit 
of liberty. In both the great parties now, there is a demand for 
Civil-Service Reform. In both parties that purpose is trying not 
merely to frame the profession — which is a very easy process — 
but to direct the action of the party. God speed the good work! 
As yet, however, I repeat, neither the Republican nor the Demo¬ 
cratic party, as such, is distinctly and consistently a Civil-Service 
Reform party. A Republican may be of the strictest party ortho¬ 
doxy, and yet despise and distrust reform. A Democrat may be 
of unquestionable party standing, and yet foam at the mouth at 
such a superhuman folly as that of not turning out every Repub¬ 
lican in office when you have the power. The test of party 
principle is the allegiance of every member of the party. There 
was never an original Republican who was not opposed to the 
extension of slavery. There was never a Jacksonian Democrat 
who was not an enemy of the Bank. Civil-Service Reform is not 
and never has been an indisputable Republican principle like the 
restriction of slavery; nor an acknowledged Democratic policy 
like the overthrow of the Bank. 

There is, undoubtedly, a much more general and decided 
reform sentiment among Republicans than among Democrats. 
But it is not yet strong enough to control the action of the party. 
The agitation was begun by a Republican Representative, but 
reform was abandoned by a Republican Congress. The move¬ 
ment was renewed by a Democratic Senator, but the Democratic 


s 


Party in his State refused to re-elect him. The bill introduced by 
him became a law in a Republican Congress, but by the vote 
both of Democrats and Republicans. National reform began 
under a Republican Administration, State and City Reform under 
a Democratic Administration. In certain details of the service 
the reformed system is enforced both by Republican and by De¬ 
mocratic authority. But had reform been the Republican policy, 
the Republican House of Representatives three years ago would 
not have laughed it to scorn. Had it been the Democratic 
policy, Democrats would not have overwhelmingly sustained every 
effort to destroy it. Not yet can either party truly assert that 
Civil-Service Reform is its peculiar and distinctive policy. 

As the reform was not a distinctive party measure, the Presi¬ 
dential election of last year did not turn upon it. The Republican 
Convention, indeed, made a very satisfactory declaration upon 
the subject. The Democratic Convention gave it a passing nod. 
But during the campaign it was only by an occasional speaker 
here and there that the question was discussed. The most active 
politicians in both parties were hostile to reform, and each party, 
wherever it had the power, in contravention of the fundamental 
principle of reform, ruthlessly levied political assessments. The 
Civil-Service Reform League and the local associations of which 
it is composed took no part whatever in the controversy. The 
officers and members, as citizens of the United States, took indi¬ 
vidually the course which seemed to them best fitted to promote 
the reform and the general public welfare. Many earnest friends 
of reform warmly supported the Republican candidate, and many 
as warmly supported his opponent. Mr. Blaine was not known 
to have shown any especial interest in the subject. Mr. Cleveland, 


6 


as Governor of New York, had signed the Reform Bilk He had 
appointed a Commission whose personal character and disinter¬ 
ested devotion to reform showed his perfect good faith. He had 
strongly urged the extension of reform to cities, and promptly 
approved the legislation to secure it. He had cordially co-oper¬ 
ated with the State Commission in every branch of its work, and 
in their second report, transmitted to the Legislature on the 
28th of January, 1885, the Commissioners remark: “It is only 
justice to the retiring Governor to say that the successful establish¬ 
ment of Civil Service methods in the State of New York during 
his administration, and the acceptance of the reform by the public, 
are largely due to his intelligent interest in the subject, his fidelity 
to its principles, and his prompt and courageous action through 
all the stages of its progress.” 

The Democratic party, which nominated Mr. Cleveland for 
the Presidency, carefully avoided making reform an issue in any 
other sense than that of a universal change of the officers and 
employes of the government, and nowhere in the Democratic 
campaign was reform discussed or demanded in the sense in which 
the word is understood by the League. The President, therefore, 
was not committed to the prosecution of reform as the candidate 
of a party which seriously desired it or promised it. But his con¬ 
victions and official action upon the subject were familiar to the 
country, and it was because of them that he was nominated. 
Undoubtedly Mr. Cleveland was nominated and elected, not 
because his party desired reform, but because of all prominent 
public men in the country he had the conviction and the courage 
of a Civil-Service Reformer. In the political situation of last year 
that consideration forced him as a candidate upon a reluctant 


1 


party, and if he had not been identified with reform he would not 
to-day be President. The vote which held the balance of power 
between the parties was the reform vote, and without that he could 
not have been elected. His probable conduct as President was to 
be inferred from the very considerations which had compelled his 
nomination; from his official action as Governor of New York; 
from his public declarations; and from his character. To many 
friends of reform these were all full of encouragement. But many 
others, who did not doubt his conviction, or his courage, or his 
purpose, had the gravest apprehensions of his ability to withstand 
that party pressure for spoils which no President, Whig, Democrat, 
or Republican, has been able to resist; and which in the light of 
experience and of the actual situation last year seemed to many 
Republicans to forbid implicit reliance upon the party as an 
agency of reform; and still other friends of reform regarded his 
declarations as unmeaning political professions, and did not care 
to inquire into his official fidelity to the reform law. 

A very large part of the reform vote, however, had been 
alienated for other reasons from the Republican candidate. But, 
except for Mr. Cleveland’s satisfactory position upon the question 
of reform, that alienated vote would have selected and supported 
another candidate, and Mr. Cleveland’s opponent would have 
been elected. The President may well feel, therefore, that he 
holds his commission from a power beyond and above his party; 
the reform sentiment of the country. Although a party candidate, 
the circumstances of his election have invested him with an inde¬ 
pendence which no President since John Quincy Adams has 
known, but which the constitution undoubtedly contemplates as 
the rightful quality of every President. The constitutional Presb 


8 


dent is the chief magistrate of the people, not the mere head of a 
party; a head, as Poulteny said, “ moved like that of a snake by 
the tail.” The circumstances of his election have given to Presi¬ 
dent Cleveland what the spoils system absolutely denies to the 
mere head of a party, the ability to strike an effective blow for the 
constitutional independence of the chief executive. 

What then is the condition of civil-service reform under the 
party change of administration ? Five months only have passed 
since the inauguration of the President, and the astonishing pro¬ 
gress of the cause which the League is organized to promote is 
shown by the fact that public opinion upon the subject is already 
so sound, it sees so clearly that a total change in the employes of 
the civil service for party reasons would be as absurd and demoral¬ 
izing and dangerous as a total change in the military and naval 
service for the same reasons, that at last a President is able as well 
as willing to resist the party pressure for spoils. While many 
changes have been made — and many changes ought to be made 
for the highest public reasons—, there has been no “clean sweep” 
of the public service. The reformed law within its limits has been 
executed with entire fidelity, and the country has seen with amaze¬ 
ment and satisfaction the unprecedented spectacle of a Democratic 
head of Department enforcing the appointment of a Republican 
clerk against the intrigues of Democratic subordinate officers, and 
despite the remonstrance of the Democratic representative in Con¬ 
gress from the clerk’s district. This, indeed, was but obedience to 
law, but it was the reform law, and a law which could be 
easily evaded. Beyond the requirements of that law, important 
administrative officers of the party opposed to the adminis¬ 
tration have been appointed and retained in positions com- 


9 


manding a large patronage. The interference of Senators and 
Representatives with executive action has been signally rebuked. 
Self-constituted counsellors, assuming to speak for the party, 
have been totally disregarded. Reasons for removals and suspen¬ 
sions, for which a party change of the executive has been hitherto 
ample explanation, have been frankly stated to the country. Use¬ 
less places have been abolished. Satisfactory officers of the oppo¬ 
sition party are serving out their terms. The chief criticism of 
the administration by the opposition is the assertion that its action 
in appointments and removals sometimes flagrantly violates sound 
principles of reform. The awakened intelligence of the country 
watches and judges every appointment and removal in the light of 
these principles; and, best and most promising of all, the spoils 
politicians of the administration party who hate to see the crush¬ 
ing yoke of a tyrannical system lifted from the neck of the 
independent American who asks to enter the public service upon 
American principles, by his own proved merit and not according 
to old aristocratic methods by the favor of a political “boss,” de¬ 
clare their willingness to vote against any Democratic candidate 
who is tainted with the principle of reform. In the presence of 
facts like these no friend of reform need feel discouraged. They 
are wholly without precedent since the introduction of the spoils 
system, and they forecast unmistakably the triumph of reform. 

But under this administration also there have been violations 
of sound principles, serious mistakes and inconsistencies, unwise 
appointments, and equally unwise removals. These, however, are 
not necessarily proofs of treachery or of hostility. During the 
late Republican administration and after the passage of the Reform 
Bill, there were constantly acts which were absolutely inconsistent 


io 


with its spirit and principles. But it would be folly for that reason 
to charge deliberate bad faith upon the Republican President, or 
to allege that reform was wholly disregarded under his administra¬ 
tion. When, therefore, we are considering what has been gained 
for reform upon the whole, what progress has been made while as 
yet neither party is truly a reform party, the word “ Higgins” is by 
no means a conclusive remark. The Higgins appointment, indeed, 
was a signal illustration of the abuse that we would correct. It 
was the appointment of a person publicly and responsibly accused 
of disreputable political practices, the explanation of which, if 
there be one, is not known, and an appointment made mainly at 
the request of a Senator, a request which is in itself a gross of¬ 
fence, and which experience and reason show to be made presum¬ 
ably for a personal and not for a public purpose, a practice which 
promotes the most flagrant corruption. This is the Higgins case, 
and I know no satisfactory explanation of it. It is the ordinary 
case under the spoils system, yet it is now made the occasion of 
especial and continuous remark. If, however, it fairly illustrated 
the general practice of the administration, it would not be singular. 
Certainly the severest censors would not assert that the Higgins 
appointment is of a kind unparalleled under other administra¬ 
tions ; and to allege that it is peculiarly offensive under Demo¬ 
cratic ascendency is to concede, what is, of course, not intended, 
that more is to be expected from a Democratic than from a 
Republican executive. But the instance of Higgins, and the 
whole Higgins school of appointments, although absolutely incon¬ 
sistent with the reformed system, do not prove recreancy to reform 
so much as the infinitely more significant and important instances 
of Pearson, Graves, Burt, and others, prove fidelity to reform, 


11 


Undoubtedly, if the Higgins case were a fair illustration of 
the course of the administration, it would show plainly that it 
was simply a spoils administration from which reform has nothing 
to hope. But test the executive by its course in the City of New 
York, and see if it indicates more or less regard for reform than 
any administration, Whig, Democratic, or Republican, since the 
spoils system began. In that city from the time of Jackson, the 
chief national offices have been held to be peculiarly the spoils of 
the successful party in the election. The incumbents have been 
generally local politicians, appointed primarily for party reasons 
and not because of any especial knowledge, training, or fitness. 
They have been the chosen political lieutenants of the national 
administration, charged with the interests of its party in the state. 
The late Republican collector, an estimable and honorable gentle¬ 
man, was appointed to supersede an upright and efficient Republi¬ 
can predecessor in the middle of his term, in order that the adminis¬ 
tration might have an especial political friend in the office. His 
appointment was not only a political act, but it was a decisive 
incident in a party controversy, which rent the party asunder and 
stimulated the assassination of the President; and in the change 
of administration which followed and which brought another 
wing of the party into power, the collector, in obedience to the 
same theory, would undoubtedly have been replaced by another 
gentleman of the then dominant wing of the party, except for the 
circumstances of the death of the President and the natural and 
patriotic unwillingness of his successor to pursue under those 
circumstances a merely factional contest. 

If President Cleveland had approved this practice, he would 
have acted accordingly. He is simple, firm, and direct in all his 


12 


methods. He has the full courage of his convictions, and if he 
had desired this tradition to be observed and the chief places in 
New York to be filled, not for efficient public service, but for the 
reward of the Democratic voters and for the maintenance of 
Democratic ascendency in administration, he would have filled 
them all with skillful Democratic politicians. But apparently he 
considers such use of the authority committed to him as an abuse 
of a public trust. Attached by conviction to the Democratic party, 
and doubtless willing in every legitimate and honorable way to 
maintain its continued control of the national executive, he evi¬ 
dently does not think that such control is to be obtained at any 
cost, and does not hold the traditional practice of the last fifty 
years to be just or expedient or adapted to promote the public 
welfare. Undoubtedly he feels the truth of a remark of one of 
his immediate predecessors, “ He serves his party best who serves 
his country most.” But, however this may be, in strict accordance 
with his views often repeated, the President has disregarded the 
evil traditions. He has reappointed the admirable Republican 
Postmaster, thus retaining every meritorious subordinate in that 
vast office and lifting it out of politics. He has selected for col¬ 
lector, the term of the late collector having expired, a Democrat 
who is a business man unknown as a politician, and who says 
frankly that he has no time for politics and that he is pledged to 
conduct the Custom House upon purely business principles. He 
has restored to the naval office a Republican and a practical civil 
service reformer to whom the cause both in the State of New 
York and in the country is greatly indebted, and whom a Repub¬ 
lican President declined to reappoint at the close of his term. 
He has promoted to the appraisership a deputy appraiser who has 


*3 


been for many years in the service, who is confessedly a thorough 
expert and master of the business, a Democrat wholly unknown 
as a politician; and to the surveyorship a Democrat who declares 
his sympathy with reform and who will be judged, as he would 
undoubtedly wish to be judged, by fidelity to his declaration. 

The late naval officer and surveyor, it is said, were displaced 
in the middle of their terms and without cause, a proceeding in¬ 
consistent with sound principles of reform. If those officers were 
not only honest and efficient, but were also heartily enforcing the 
reformed system, discarding political favoritism, absolutely prohibit¬ 
ing political assessments, and so earnestly observing the reformed 
system according to the letter and the spirit that the adminis¬ 
tration could depend upon their prompt and hearty co-operation 
in all measures for improving the methods of Custom House 
administration, the objection is well founded, but not otherwise. 
An officer may be honest, but too strong a partisan or too closely 
wedded to traditional habits to be an effective agent in withstand¬ 
ing political influence and in reforming old methods. The re¬ 
formed system leaves the power of removal unrestricted, and there 
are many just causes for removal which involve no question of 
moral character or the honest discharge of routine duty. When 
all criticism is made, the treatment of the New York offices is a 
signal proof of the sincerity and patriotism of the President, and a 
striking illustration of the immense and beneficial change which 
has been affected by an aroused public opinion. When this 
League was organized in this city in 1881, it would have seemed 
a mere extravagance to prophesy that within four years a Presi¬ 
dent, nominated by a party which had been out of power for 
twenty-four years, would refuse, in the interest of the public wel- 


H 


fare, to regard the New York Custom House and Post Office as 
party spoils. And this he would have been unable to do, except 
for the consciousness that his own views of public duty were 
shared and sustained by the conviction and desire of so large a 
body of his fellow-citizens that, in carrying those views into effect, 
he might truly feel himself to be the willing instrument of the 
intelligence and the patriotism of the country. 

Meanwhile, many changes are made in the service, and the 
administration is accused of removing efficient officers under the 
plea of offensive partisanship — a plea which is asserted to mean 
only that every Republican is in Democratic eyes an offensive 
partisan. That is undoubtedly true of the eyes of both parties in 
regard to opponents, and undoubtedly, also, any plea may be 
falsely alleged. But that fact does not destroy its force when 
truthfully urged. The tap root of the evils and abuses which 
reform would destroy is the partisan prostitution of the Civil Ser¬ 
vice. Offensive partisanship is a phrase which fitly describes it, 
and such partisanship is properly held to be a just cause of 
removal. 

No man had a more sensible and practical view of this sub¬ 
ject than Albert Gallatin, Secretary of the Treasury in Mr. Jeffer¬ 
son’s administration. In the first months of that administration, 
after the first great party change in the executive, following a 
furious and exasperated political contest, Mr. Gallatin prepared a 
circular to the collectors of revenue, in which he said, with the 
hearty approval of Mr. Jefferson, that it was his desire that “the 
door of office be no longer shut against any man merely on 
account of his political opinions, but that, whether he shall differ or 
not from those avowed either by you or by myself, integrity and 


*5 


capacity suitable to the station be the only qualifications that shall 
direct our choice. Permit me, since I have touched this topic, to 
add that, whilst freedom of opinion and freedom of suffrage at 
public elections are considered by the President as imprescriptable 
rights which, possessing as citizens, you cannot have lost by 
becoming public officers, he will regard any exercise of official 
influence to lestrain or control the same right in others as 
injurious to that part of the public administration which is 
confided to your care, and practically destructive of the funda¬ 
mental principles of a Republican Constitution.” Forty years 
afterwards, in 1841, Daniel Webster, as Secretary of State, pre¬ 
pared the circular for President Harrison, which echoed the views 
of Jefferson and Gallatin. “ I will remove no incumbent from 
office who has faithfully and honestly acquitted himself of the 
duties of his office, except in cases where such officer has been 
guilty of an active partizanship or, by secret means, the less manly 
and, therefore, the more objectionable, has given his official influ¬ 
ence to the purposes of party, thereby bringing the patronage of 
the government in conflict with the freedom of elections. Numer¬ 
ous removals may become necessary under this rule.” 

President Cleveland, in the same strain, said clearly and for¬ 
cibly in his letter of December 25th, 1884, to the Executive Com¬ 
mittee of this League : “ There is a class of Government positions 
which are not within the letter of the civil service statute, but 
which are so disconnected with the policy of an administration that 
the removal therefrom of the present incumbents, in my opinion, 
should not be made during the term for which they were appoin¬ 
ted, solely on partisan grounds and for the purpose of putting in 
their places those who are in political accord with the appointing 


i6 


power. But many now holding such positions have forfeited all 
just claims to retention, because they have used their places for 
party purposes in disregard of fheir duty to the people, and because, 
instead of being decent public servants, they have proved them¬ 
selves offensive partisans and unscrupulous manipulators of local 
party management. The lessons of the past should be unlearned, 
and such officials, as well as their successors, should be taught 
that efficiency, fitness, and devotion to public duty, are the con¬ 
ditions of their continuance in public place, and that the quiet 
and unobtrusive exercise of individual political rights is the reason¬ 
able measure of their party service.” 

In declaring offensive partisanship to be a just cause for re¬ 
moval, the President confirms the views-of Gallatin and Webster 
as approved by his predecessors Jefferson and Harrison, and in 
enforcing those views he acts upon the soundest principles of re¬ 
form. That his declaration is insincere is not proved by single 
instances of injustice in a service embracing more than a hundred 
thousand places distributed across a continent, and that it is 
hypocritical pretence is neither consistent with his character nor 
with the fact that the great majority of place-holders are undis¬ 
turbed. To remove a Republican officer for offensive partisanship 
is to give a moral pledge to the country that a Democratic succes¬ 
sor would be removed for the same cause. It is an invitation to 
the severest public scrutiny of the conduct in this respect both of 
the officer and of the administration. Every community is inter¬ 
ested to watch the event, to expose the offence, and to demand the 
removal of the offender, and no reason whatever has been shown 
to question the honesty of the President’s declaration, nor the 
fidelity of his personal observance of it. 


7 


If, however, it should appear that such a clean sweep as is 
reported, and apparently correctly, to have taken place in the 
Claims Bureau of the Attorney General’s office, has .been actually 
made, it is evident that the same praise cannot be awarded to that 
officer. The Claims Bureau employs an assistant Attorney General 
and six assistant Attorneys. Their duty is the defence of suits 
brought against the United States in the Court of Claims. It is 
asserted without contradiction that these officers were swept out in 
one day, — Republicans, Democrats, and non-partisans alike, for 
they were of every political sympathy, — swept out without 
personal or official reasons alleged. Experienced officers were 
summarily replaced by inexperienced, and all was done, not for 
official reasons, but in deference to a demand of Senators and 
Representatives in Congress, and to make place for dependents 
selected by them. 

If this uncontradicted report be true, there could be no more 
flagrant illustration of the shameful wrong of the spoils system than 
this submission of a branch of the executive department of the 
government to the dictation of members of the legislative depart¬ 
ment. The interference of Senators and Representatives with 
nominations and minor appointments in the civil service is not 
only without constitutional warrant, but it is an indecent and 
dangerous confusion of two functions which the constitution care¬ 
fully keeps distinct. The Senator or Representative who makes 
himself an office broker, to pay his own parasites from the public 
purse, should stand well exposed in the pillory of public contempt, 
and by reason of such interference should forfeit the respect of 
the country and the confidence and support of his constituency. 
The law which already prohibits this dictation and interference in 



I& 

all cases included in the classified service, should be amended and 
stringently prohibit them in all cases whatever. Such interference 
is the peculiat peril of the administration. And if the course pur¬ 
sued in the Claims Bureau should unhappily become the general 
policy, undoubtedly the whole force of the civil-service reform 
sentiment of the country would be strongly arrayed against the 
administration. 

It will be remarked that the President’s letter states that 
removals of satisfactory incumbents should not be made for 
partisan reasons “during the term for which they were appointed.” 
But it is equally true that such officers should not be removed 
for such reasons at the end of their terms. The administration, 
indeed, may very properly regard it as expedient for reform itself 
to seize the opportunity offered by the four years law to equalize 
the important part of the service affected by the law between the 
parties, in order that each may have the same interest in the con¬ 
tinued maintenance of the reformed system. This equalization, 
however, could be accomplished by means of such changes as 
ought to be made for legitimate reasons, without the removal of 
efficient incumbents who are not offensive partisans; and when 
once the equalization should be secured, the application of the 
reform to a much larger range of offices would virtually exclude 
the further mischief of serious partisan disturbance of the Civil 
Service. But to replace not only such incumbents as ought to be 
removed for just reasons, but also all satisfactory incumbents at 
the end of their terms by successors selected from another party, 
and selected for that reason, would result in a complete change in 
that part of the service during the administration, not for reasons 
of official conduct, which are the sole legitimate reasons, but for 


*9 


political and party considerations. If the plea offered for such a 
course should be that this service is now filled almost exclusively 
with the adherents of one party, it is plain that the result would 
furnish the next administration with the same plea for the same 
change, and so indefinitely prolong the abuse. 

Indeed, to facilitate the abuse was the very object in substitu¬ 
ting a four years term for the constitutional tenure of honesty and 
efficiency. It was to place the whole Civil Service at the abso¬ 
lute disposal of the President, and enable him politically to change 
all incumbents without the odium of arbitrary removal. It is to 
make such a course difficult, and to impose upon the executive 
the rightful responsibility of direct removal, that we propose the 
repeal of the four years law. On previous occasions the League 
has considered the reasons of the repeal. At present it is enough 
to say that, should it be the policy of the administration, under the 
four years law, instead of reappointing satisfactory incumbents of 
places which, in the President’s apt phrase, are disconnected with 
the policy of the administration, to displace them at the end of 
their terms for political reasons, the procedure would be the con¬ 
tinuation of the old and mischievous practice from which the chief 
evil and perils of the spoils system spring. Such removal of com¬ 
petent and faithful and satisfactory officers has always resulted in 
summary and complete reprisals when the party control of the 
executive has again changed. The argument is unanswerable 
that, if political opinion and sympathy are just and adequate 
reasons for a change, and the power of making a change is 
unquestioned, the sooner justice is done the better. But the 
whole public service of an immense country involving vast inter¬ 
ests of every kind can not be arbitrarily and radically disturbed at 


20 


every point without the utmost confusion and monstrous loss and 
peril. The change would become more and more the sole and 
absorbing question of the election. The election would become 
at last a civil convulsion. A peaceful issue would be always 
doubtful. With the rapidly increasing range of patronage and a 
highly organized army of party stipendiaries distributed about the 
country and supported by the public treasury, the question of the 
Civil Service would undoubtedly soon change from oiTe of reform 
to one of revolution. 

There is no reason to doubt that this is as plain to the Presi¬ 
dent as it is to us; and unquestionably it demonstrates that the 
security of reform must be always dangerously threatened until the 
four years laws are repealed. This repeal must be urged more 
resolutely than ever, for it would be a formal restoration of the 
constitutional tenure and a declaration that removal should be 
made for legitimate official reasons only. Gratifying as the situa¬ 
tion is, there must not be the least relaxation of our vigilance and 
activity in scrutinizing and criticising every instance of conduct 
inconsistent with the principles of the reformed system, and in 
defending the system against every attack. It is always a wise 
maxim for good citizens to remember, that nothing is done while 
anything yet remains to do. Undoubtedly we are soon to 
encounter the most resolute, shrewd, and deliberately organized 
assault upon the reformed system. The professional politicians in 
both parties whom the spoils despotism has produced are tho¬ 
roughly aroused, and they will not relinquish it, and the power 
which it gives them, without a desperate struggle. The Soldiers 
and Sailors amendment of this year, very strongly supported in 
both parties, almost succeeded in practically nullifying the reform 


law in the only two States where such a law exists, and this 
attempt undoubtedly will be renewed. Already the thunder of 
Democratic discontent with the reform spirit of the President is 
plainly muttering. Democratic Senators and Representatives in 
Congress, and the Democratic press, with signal exceptions, are 
unquestionably hostile to reform as we understand it. The con¬ 
stitutionality of the reform law is denied, and it is proposed to test 
it in the courts, and an effort in the Democratic House to repeal 
it is not improbable. On the other hand, the Pennsylvania Re¬ 
publicans demand a fixed term of office with removal for cause. 
Leading Republican organs approve the demand. But fixed 
terms for the larger number of important offices, upon which the 
minor places are dependent, already exist. The passage of the 
laws which fixed the terms was the second great triumph of the 
spoils system. The repeal of these laws is the present legislative 
object of the League. It has been recommended unanimously by 
the Committee in a Democratic House, and the demand of the 
Pennsylvania Convention, if made general, would array the Repub¬ 
lican party against that object. 

The assertion that without such a limitation there would be a 
life tenure in any offensive sense, or that the Civil-Service Reform 
League advocates a life tenure, is wholly unfounded. The Reform 
League leaves minor official terms and tenure where the Constitu¬ 
tion and the contemporary Congressional interpretation of the 
Constitution left them. It holds that the power of removal should 
remain absolutely unchecked, and believes that the principle of the 
reformed system restrains as far as possible the merely arbitrary 
exercise of that power. To make sure that removals shall be 
made for legitimate cause only, we must provide, so far as law can 


22 


accomplish it, that all appointments shall be made only for legiti¬ 
mate cause; and so long as the power of removal remains free, 
and while it is committed to agents appointed by officers whom 
the people elect, a life tenure in any un-American or undesirable 
sense is impossible. The danger arising from the assumption,of a 
vested right of office and the consequent negligence and arrogance 
of an official class is not to be apprehended from employes who 
may be removed at any moment, but it plainly lurks in abolishing 
the power of peremptory removal and conferring a right of office 
for a fixed period forfeited only for cause to be judicially estab¬ 
lished. The adoption of such a policy by either party, like the 
passage of the exemption amendments, would be a serious blow at 
reform and will be stoutly resisted by the League. 

Such seems to me to be the present position of reform. I 
think no sincere friend of the cause in which we are interested be¬ 
lieves that its promise is less hopeful than it was at our last meet¬ 
ing a year ago; or that it has retrograded during the five months 
of a new administration which expire to-day. I believe that any 
unprejudiced -observer, Republican or Democrat, who considers 
the enormous difficulties and perplexities of the situation, and who 
looks solely at the interest of reform, will admit that, since the 
spoils system was first generally introduced into our national ad¬ 
ministration, no President has given such conclusive evidence both 
of his reform convictions and of his courage in enforcing his con¬ 
victions as President Cleveland. Indeed, such an observer will 
not deny that the good cause is very much stronger than it was a 
year ago, and that the action of the executive, with whatever 
inconsistencies and mistakes, has been of the utmost service 
toward the final overthrow of the odious spoils system — a relic of 


*3 


monarchical and aristocratic rule which degrades our politics, dis¬ 
graces our national character, and which deprives American 
citizens in all parties of a free and equal chance honorably to 
secure a place in the public service. There is no higher patriotic 
achievement than this, and in the great controversy for administra¬ 
tive reform, — the most important contest in this country since 
that of slavery,— a President who has shown the fidelity to con¬ 
viction, the official heroism, the confidence in the patriotism and 
intelligence of the people, displayed thus far by President Cleve¬ 
land, unquestionably deserves the warmest support and the most 
generous consideration from all patriotic American citizens, what¬ 
ever their party sympathies may be. As the great General,— his 
predecessor,— in the war for the Union, fought, not for a section 
nor for a party, but for all sections and for every party, for 
America and for human liberty, and therefore, as he dies, is 
lamented sincerely by a grateful and united nation; the Presi¬ 
dent, in resisting the powerful and evil influence which would 
degrade the public service into party spoils, promotes the highest 
welfare of that government of the people which Washington in 
our fathers’ day established, and Grant in ours magnanimously 
saved. He may be well assured that the President who emanci¬ 
pates the public service from the degradation of the spoils 
despotism will be gratefully remembered with that other President 
who broke the fetters of the slave. 

Gentlemen, the stars in their courses fought against Sisera. 
But they fight for us. The desire of good government, of honest 
politics, of parties which shall be legitimate agencies of great 
policies; all the high instincts of good citizenship; all the lofty 
impulses of American patriotism; are the “sweet influences” that 


24 


favor reform. Every patriotic American has already seen their 
power, 

“ And by the vision splendid 
Is on his way attended.” 

Sir Philip Sidney wrote to his brother upon his travels, “ When¬ 
ever you hear of a good war, go to it.” That is the call which 
we have heard and obeyed. And a good war it has been, and is. 
Everywhere, indeed, there are signs of an alert and adroit hos¬ 
tility. They are the shots of outposts that foretell the battle. 
But everywhere, also, there are signs of the advance of the whole 
line, the inspiring harbingers of victory. Never was the prospect 
fairer. If the shadows still linger, the dawn is deepening.— the 
dawn that announces our sun of Austerlitz. 


Publications of the New York Association. 


What the Competitive Examinations really are. Per copy, 3 cts. 
Per 100,.$2 00 

Daniel Webster and the Spoils System. A11 extract from Senator 
Payard's oration at Dartmouth College, June, 1882. Per copy, 3 cts. 
Per 100, . . . . . . . $1 50 

The “Pendleton Bill.” Bill to Regulate and Improve the Civil Service 
of the United States, as approved. Per copy, 3 cts. Per 100, $1 50 

The Civil Service of Cities, Police and Eire Departments. A 

Report to the C. S. R. A. of N. Y. made by request of the State Civil 
Service Commission. Per copy, 5 c ^ s * 

What has been done in New York and may be done elsewhere. 
Per copy, I ct. Per 100, - - - - 30 cts. 

What is the Civil Service? (Card for distribution). 

Debate on Civil Service Reform before 7 th Congress of P. E. 
Church. Per copy, ----- 5 cts * 

Annual Report of the C. S. R. A. of N. Y., May, 1883. Percopy, 3 cts. 

The same for 1884 . Per copy, - - - - 3 cts. 

The same for 1835 . Percopy, - - 3 cts. 


MISCELLANEOUS. 

Civil Service in Great Britain. By Dorman B. Eaton. Per copy. 25 cts. 
The Competitive Test. By Edward M. Shepard. Per copy, 5 cts. 
New York City Civil Service Regulations. Per copy, - 5 cts. 

Report of the U. S. Civil Service Commission, 1884 . Ter copy, 5 cts. 
The same for 1885 - 

Report of the N. Y. Civil Service Commission, 1884 . 

The same for 1835 . 

Orders for the publications will be filled by William Potts, Secretary, 
4 Pine Street, New York. 






PRESIDENT. 

GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. 


SECRETARY. 

WILLIAM POTTS. 

TREASURER. 


LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 


0 028 070 941 4 


IRA BURSLEY. 


EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE, 


WM. A. AIKEN, 

SILAS W. BURT, 
EDWARD M. SHEPARD, 
JOHN JAY, 

A. R. MACDONOUGH, 
W. W. MONTGOMERY, 
J. HALL PLEASANTS, 


FREDERIC W. WHITRIDGE, 
SHERMAN S. ROGERS, 
WILLIAM CARY SANGER, 
CARL SCHURZ, 

MOORFIELD STOREY, 
EVERETT P. WHEELER, 
MORRILL WYMAN, JR. 


The formation of local Associations in every locality 
where a nucleus can be found is much to be desired, and 
the Secretary of the League will be glad to assist any move¬ 
ment in that direction. Each Association, when formed, 
should establish an official connection with the National 
League. The details of the organization having been 
furnished to the Executive Committee through the Secre¬ 
tary, that Committee is authorized to admit the association 
to membership in the League, whereupon it is entitled to 
elect a member of the General Committee and a represen¬ 
tative Vice-President. The Secretary should thereafter be 
kept informed of the progress of the work, and of changes 
of officers as they may occur. 

Address 

WILLIAM POTTS, 

Secretary, 

NO. 4 PINE STREET, NEW YORK. 





